


Defenseless

by rubyelf



Category: Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubyelf/pseuds/rubyelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pleasant evening is rudely interrupted </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of Rubyelf's Ruby-Verse AU.

  


Title: Defenseless  
Author: RubyElf  
Rating: PG13  
Characters: Aragorn / Boromir  
Summary: A pleasant evening is rudely interrupted 

Just something that popped into my head today, since I'm snowed in at the office and no one has been in all day.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Shh!” Boromir said suddenly.

Aragorn fell silent immediately. The silence within the curtained stone walls of the Steward’s inner chambers was so deep that he could hear the softest whisper of flames licking up from the lamps burning on the stand next to the bed.

“I heard the door,” Boromir muttered, reaching over the edge of the bed and groping through the clothing strewn there.

“I thought you locked the doors,” Aragorn whispered.

“I did,” Boromir hissed, scowling at him. “That lock can be picked, though. Faramir used to do it all the time when he was a boy. Sneak in here and pull all sorts of stunts while I was away. Never knew what I’d find in here when I got home. Frogs, once.”

Aragorn blinked at him as he pulled on what he hoped were his breeches. “Frogs.”

“Aye. Frogs. Put frogs in my bed.”

Boromir reached for his sword where it leaned against the wall. Aragorn moved to get up, but Boromir motioned sharply.

“Stay here.”

“Excuse me?”

Boromir smiled slightly at the insulted tone of the other man’s voice. “You don’t have a weapon, that’s all. No offense intended, mighty warrior.”

He slid the door to the bedroom open carefully and leaned out. In the faint light from the windows, he could see the curtains drifting slightly in the warm air, the shadows of chairs and tables, the dark patches of tapestries against the paler stone.

“Who’s there?” he called out, making his voice as gruff and threatening as he could manage, which he was generally quite good at. Tonight, though, the words were tinged with a hint of worry that Boromir hadn’t intended. Ordinarily, the idea of someone sneaking into his room in the middle of the night, even with the intent to harm him, would do little more than make him furious and ready to fight. Tonight, though, in the glow of the lanterns behind him, was a man whose angular face and lean body and clear gray eyes he could see in his mind just as clearly as if he’d turned around to look at him, a man who had come to his rooms unarmed against Boromir or anything else, and Boromir was suddenly and painfully aware that if he were to do something foolish and the intruder should get the better of him, Aragorn would have little with which to protect himself from harm.

Cursing the worry that made him cautious, Boromir stepped forward, eyes flicking across the open space, annoyed at the many concealing shadows his gaze could not penetrate. He balanced his sword, ready to swing it in either direction.

Something clattered against the stone floor, and Boromir instinctually whirled to his left to face it, even as his brain registered the noise as a diversion, and in that moment a solid figure slammed hard into his right side, catching his shoulder and sending them both crashing to the gound, Boromir’s sword clanging on the stone as he landed on his stomach. He grabbed for it, trying to roll free, but his attacker reached out and yanked his arms behind his back, and a voice hissed in his ear.

“That was much, much too easy.”

“Who are you? Get off of me! What do you want?”

“You were supposed to be asleep,” the voice whispered. “Since when are you awake in the middle of the…”

The last word became a choked sound of surprise, and the grip on his arms suddenly let go. Boromir twisted free and rolled into a defensive crouch facing the hooded figure who had unexpectedly released him. To his astonishment, the man was now rising to his feet, moving very cautiously, because there was an arm across his throat and the hand held a sharp shard of curved lantern glass into the exposed curve beneath his jaw. Aragorn grinned at Boromir over the stranger’s shoulder.

“You should know me better than that, my friend. I may not have a weapon, but I’m never defenseless.”

“Wait…” the hooded figure protested, and now in a full voice instead of a whisper, and Boromir was on his feet, scowling furiously as he pulled the hood back.

“You rotten, sneaky little bastard!”

Faramir looked at him sheepishly. Aragorn laughed and stepped back, releasing him.

“You’re lucky I didn’t hurt you,” he said, shaking his head.

Faramir recognized the voice and turned to gape at Aragorn, who leaned back against the wall now, framed in golden lantern glow from the bedroom doorway, wearing nothing but his breeches.

“I… err… I didn’t expect my brother to have… company?” Faramir stuttered.

“What in the name of the gods were you doing, you ridiculous idiot?” Boromir said, grabbing his brother by the front of his cloak and giving him a sharp shake.

Faramir attempted valiantly to keep from smiling as he reached into his cloak and handed Boromir a leather pouch. Boromir snatched it from him, inspecting it cautiously, but then he grunted in alarm and dropped it to the floor.

“It moved! What the hell! What is that?”

Faramir directed his eyes at the ground to avoid meeting his brother’s furious glare.

“It’s a bag of grasshoppers.”

“A bag of…” Boromir gaped.

“Grasshoppers,” Faramir said helpfully. “Quite big ones. I had some of the stable boys find them for me.”

“And what,” Boromir demanded, “were you intending to do with a bag of grasshoppers?”

Faramir grinned. “Let them loose under your bedroom door.”

Boromir growled low in his throat and for just a moment Faramir wondered in the back of his mind if perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all, but Aragorn burst out laughing, leaning against the wall for support.

“What is so funny?” Boromir said sharply.

Aragorn gasped for breath before he could speak. “I’ve never seen anyone drop anything as fast as you just dropped that bag. The look on your face…”

He dissolved in laughter again. Boromir glared at Faramir as his desperate attempt to look solemn and contrite failed and he sank back into a chair, laughing as hard as Aragorn.

“Fine,” Boromir said, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile as he waited for the laughter to abate. “Aragorn, why don’t you go and get whatever lamps are left that you didn’t break, and brother, put those blasted creatures outside, and then we might as well have a drink… I’m wide awake now, anyway.”

Faramir clapped his brother on the back happily. “That’s the spirit.”

“I’m going to kill you someday,” Boromir muttered.

“At least they weren’t frogs,” Aragorn said helpfully, trying not to laugh again.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aragorn instigates.

  


TITLE: Bright Ideas  
AUTHOR: RubyElf  
RATING: PG  
WARNINGS: Silliness  
SUMMARY: Aragorn instigates.

What to do when there's two and a half feet of snow on the ground and I'm stuck alone in the office again?

 

In the end, they all agreed that Faramir had started it, even if his attempt at releasing grasshoppers in Boromir’s room hadn’t gone according to plan. Boromir had, of course, intended to retaliate, but his usual method of doing this had always been to drag his younger brother outside to one of the gardens and threaten him with a violent beating while Faramir attempted to look contrite. Considering that Boromir had been threatening Faramir with beatings since they were small boys but had never had the heart to actually inflict any pain on him, this method of retaliation was not tremendously effective as a deterrent to future antics.

Aragorn had some suggestions, but Boromir refused to participate in such childish behavior and scolded Aragorn for contemplating such un-royal stunts. That was the end of the discussion for exactly two days, which was how long it took for Faramir to catch a pair of garter snakes basking on the rock walls in the gardens and sneak them into Boromir’s clothes drawers. At this point Boromir decided that he only had two options, one of which was to do his brother a degree of harm appropriate to the indignity he had suffered as a result of making rather un-manly noises when he discovered the creatures. The other option, of course, was to go along with Aragorn’s idea, although Boromir did make sure to grumble and complain about the immaturity of the whole business just in case anyone might mistakenly think that he approved of it.

So it was that Faramir returned to his rooms one night after an especially rough day patrolling; his men had run into several of the loose bands of orcs that still roamed the area, leaderless now but still dangerous, and the brutes had fled into the rocky forest, requiring the dangerous and exhausting task of tracking them on foot. He knew the water in the bath down the hall from his room would be cold, but at least it would remove some of the grime and orc blood. The windowless bath room was lit only by the torch Faramir had carried with him from his room, and at this time of night no one else was using either of the large baths, so Faramir tossed his clothes aside and slipped into the cool water, enjoying the feeling of the dirt and sweat lifting from his skin.

A small splash rippled the water at the other end of the tub, and Faramir sat up sharply. Before he could think too much about the cause of the disturbance, however, he had a much more urgent distraction to deal with; something was abruptly and busily nibbling at his feet, and another something had begun poking around his most sensitive parts. He scrambled out of the water with a yelp of alarm, dripping wet and naked, only to find that somehow his clothes had vanished while he was bathing. He walked back to the edge of the bath, this time carrying the torch with him, and as the water settled he could see a number of small fish swimming merrily back and forth in their pleasant new pond.

Faramir chuckled to himself. Apparently his brother had decided to rise to the challenge. And the fish had been a clever idea; he wouldn’t have expected Boromir to come up with something that creative. Faramir, though, had been honing his skills at this since childhood, and had no intention of letting this be the end of it.

Boromir had to make excuses for himself the next night at the dinner table when he rather inappropriately spit out the pastry that had just been served to him, but the smirk on his brother’s face told him it was no accident that the dessert had been generously sprinkled with salt instead of sugar. The expressions were reversed the next evening, however, when Faramir sat down to dinner and jumped out of his chair with a surprised curse, having discovered that someone had soaked the seat cushion of his chair with water and that he now had a large wet spot on his posterior.

Faramir retaliated by stringing a rope across the door to Boromir’s room a few inches from the floor, resulting in Boromir in full armor falling flat on the floor in front of several horrified soldiers who’d been walking with him. This, of course, was absolutely intolerable, so somehow in the next few days all of Faramir’s keys on his heavy key ring were replaced with other, less useful ones, so that Faramir spent the next week cursing and shouting ineffectually at locks and door knobs, often while several counselors or ambassadors or other important people waited with increasing confusion to be let into their meeting rooms. This was really only fair, though, since it took Boromir most of the next week to track down and remove the crickets Faramir had let loose in his rooms, having decided that grasshoppers were not sufficiently distracting; every time Boromir began to drift off to sleep, yet another of his brother’s insect minions would begin chirping away in a corner somewhere, requiring Boromir to go searching for it, generally destroying half his room in the process.

Faramir was out on the training fields, walking a group of young archers through the correct stance and posture when drawing a bow, when he noticed rather sharp prickling sensations that began around his ankles and rapidly moved upwards, until shortly he was struggling not to scratch desperately at the fierce jabs inflicted on his torso. Fleeing to the nearby stable, he stripped off his leather vest and tunic and undershirt to discover to his horror that his clothes were crawling with ants. The loose sandy ground of the training fields were often dotted with anthills, but they had never bothered Faramir before. Of course, he’d never unwittingly gone out onto the training fields with the inside surface of his leather vest smeared with honey before, either.

Faramir was still itching badly from the numerous bites he’d suffered when Boromir reached for a jug of water to splash his face one morning before dressing, only to discover that the water had been generously laced with an extremely fragrant floral perfume, which not only caused Boromir to suffer incessant comments from his soldiers about his pleasant aroma, but also to be pursued endlessly by eager honeybees for the remainder of the day, with several stings resulting from his annoyed attempts to swat them.

It was when Boromir nearly injured himself dropping his sword repeatedly during practice, courtesy of someone greasing the palms of his gloves, and when on the same day Faramir alarmed several young recruits when an arrow flew far of course and rather too close to them, understandably so since someone had cut notches out of the feathers, that Arwen finally decided this was more than enough.

“How long do you intend this to go on?” she demanded, as she and Aragorn ate breakfast in their rooms the next morning.

“I have no idea. Far be it from me to interfere with a brotherly quarrel,” Aragorn said innocently, spreading butter on a slice of bread.

“Interfere?” she repeated, amused. “You do remember that Elladan and Elrohir are my brothers.”

“And mine. And?” Aragorn asked, pretending to have no idea what she was getting at as he inspected the jam with rather too much interest.

“Well, the fish in the bath was Elladan’s, wasn’t it?”

Aragorn grinned. “Salting the baked goods was his too. Elrohir always went more along the lines of trip wires and wet chair cushions.”

“What about the crickets?”

“Dreadful, aren’t they? Elladan’s.”

“If I know my brothers at all, the honey must have been Elrohir’s.”

Aragorn smiled. “Of course.”

“You must make them stop, my dear. They’re going to harm themselves.”

“Very well,” Aragorn sighed.

“Are you going to admit to either one of them that you’ve been giving them both ideas this entire time?”

 “No, and neither are you.”

 

  



	3. Taste of His Own Medicine (follows <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1">Bright Ideas</a>)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, revenge isn't always sweet. In fact, seems that sometimes it doesn't taste very good at _all._

 TITLE: Taste of His Own Medicine (follows [Bright Ideas](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1))  
AUTHOR: RubyElf  
RATING: G  
CHARACTERS: Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Arwen  
WARNINGS: Waste of perfectly good baking products  
SUMMARY: Apparently, revenge isn't always sweet. In fact, seems that sometimes it doesn't taste very good at _all._

__

 

__

 

__“Well, we can’t just let him get away with it,” Boromir said, thumping his mug of ale down on Faramir’s table.

“I don’t see why not,” Faramir said, moving his ale out of reach of Boromir’s annoyance.

“I don’t appreciate being made to look like a fool,” Boromir muttered.

“I’ve been making you look like a fool since we were old enough to talk,” Faramir said mildly.

Boromir glared at him. “And I ought to have beaten you senseless for it.”

“So what did you have in mind for revenge?” Faramir asked, leaning back in his chair. “A beating probably isn’t an option… he is the king, after all, and if you wouldn’t hurt your troublesome little brother after everything he did, you’re certainly not going to hurt someone you’ve been…”

Boromir gave him a sharp glance and Faramir stopped talking.

“Besides,” Boromir said. “It’s about time he gets what he deserves. He’s been thinking much too highly of himself after all the trouble he’s caused the past month.”

Faramir grinned. “What did you have in mind, brother?”

After three days, Boromir’s plan to give Aragorn “a taste of his own medicine” plan was off to an appallingly bad start, which was exactly what Faramir had expected, but hadn’t thought it wise to mention. On the first night both brothers had made sure to be seated at the dinner table before Aragorn and Arwen arrived, and Boromir waited eagerly for Aragorn to leap out of his seat when his posterior encountered the rather sharp bits of wood that had been inserted under the fabric of the seat cushion. Aragorn, however, settled into his chair without so much as a wince. His guest, a counselor from Rohan and close friend of Eomer’s who had been given a place of honor at the king’s side for dinner, was not as fortunate, and he bounded out of his seat with a pained yelp, prompting much confusion as everyone else attempted to determine what he was shouting about. The brothers were watching the chaos when Aragorn’s voice spoke softly over their shoulders.

“Chairs do get moved about occasionally as the table is set, you know.”

Boromir stormed off without eating.

Considering his disapproval of snakes in general, Boromir was more than pleased with himself when he managed to capture one in the gardens, although he insisted Faramir be the one to carry it in his shirt when they sneaked into the king’s rooms the next afternoon. The expected racket never occurred, and Boromir assumed that the creature hadn’t been discovered yet, but the next morning Arwen thanked them both very sweetly for the charming new pet, informing them that Aragorn had named it after Pippin.

The bucket of greenish pond mud that was intended for Aragorn’s favorite reading chair never made it that far; when Boromir pushed to door to the king’s rooms open, the large basket of flour that had been precariously perched on the shelf above the door came cascading down, leaving both men completely blanketed in the fine powder for their walk back through the city to the baths.

The brothers went to considerable effort to sneak into the kitchen and swap the bottle of wine that had been set aside for the king for dinner with an identical bottle full of red vinegar, but Aragorn not only drank his wine with obvious enjoyment; he commented on its fine quality and proposed a toast to the brothers and their latest military successes. Boromir would have liked to escape, but all eyes were now on him; he managed to keep his face from turning red until one of the serving girls appeared between him and Faramir and poured them both glasses of wine for the toast. Faramir smelled his and winced.

“Brother, this is…”

“I know, I know,” Boromir hissed.

“Drink up, gentlemen!” Aragorn said proudly, raising his glass.

After a long moment of watching them sputter and try not to make faces as they sipped at the sour contents of their glasses, Aragorn finally took pity on them and drew the attention of the dinner guests to one of the lovely tapestries on the wall, giving both of them a chance to hurriedly empty their glasses under the table. Arwen smiled at them knowingly across the table over the rim of her own glass.

“My dear boys, you know that my husband loves you both dearly… but if you want to pull something over on him, you’re going to have to try _much_ harder.”  
 __

To be continued... of course...  



	4. Escalation (follows <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1">Bright Ideas</a>  and <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843710.html#cutid1">Taste of His Own Medicine</a>)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boromir doesn't back down. Ever.

TITLE: Escalation (follows [Bright Ideas](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1) and [Taste of His Own Medicine](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843710.html#cutid1))  
AUTHOR: RubyElf  
RATING: PG  
CHARACTERS: Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir  
WARNINGS: Inappropriate behavior in front of Dwarven company  
SUMMARY: Boromir doesn't back down. Ever.

Snowed in at home today. Getting rather tired of it. Really, two feet is _plenty_.

 

“You know, this really hasn’t gone our way so far,” Faramir pointed out. “Perhaps we ought to think about letting it go for a little while.”

Boromir’s green eyes flashed, and Faramir knew his brother’s answer before he spoke; Boromir did not back down from a challenge. Ever.

“No. Not until we get him. Just once, that’s all I want. So start coming up with ideas. You’re the one who’s always been good at things like this.”

“I’m also the one who usually got caught and punished for it,” Faramir reminded him. “Don’t you remember how angry father was when he found out it was me that let mice loose in one of his council meetings?”

Boromir laughed. “Oh, I remember. You’d have got a beating that day if I hadn’t… hmm.”

“I don’t like that look in your eye at all, brother.”

The stone halls of the city echoed the footsteps of the two men as they hurried toward the throne room.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Faramir warned. “You know he’s meeting with that delegation of dwarves from Helm’s Deep, and something tells me dwarves aren’t keen on practical jokes…”

Boromir muttered something vulgar about the kinds of things dwarves were rumored to be keen on and kept walking. The two brothers strode into the throne room together to find Aragorn seated at the long meeting table with a number of dwarves, obviously of some status with the gold rings woven into their beards and the handsome inlay of metal and jewels worked into the light armor they wore.

“Gentlemen!” Aragorn called to them, gesturing. “These fine fellows have brought news of how our friend Gimli fares in restoring the Glittering Caves.”

Boromir took his seat next to the king, and Aragorn smiled at his steward broadly, then gestured for Faramir to take a seat as well.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, nodding to the dwarf who’d been speaking. “Please go on. The Steward and his brother know Master Gimli personally and will be delighted to hear how well things are going.”

“Certainly,” Boromir said. “Let’s hear it.”

The dwarf gave Boromir a rather sharp look, but continued with his report about the work on the new gates for the city. Boromir paid him no attention; he was preoccupied with his attempt to dig the little wooden box from beneath the hem of his heavy over-tunic without anyone wondering what he was fiddling with under the table. He gave Faramir a quick glance, and right on cue his little brother launched cheerfully into a round of questions about gem mining. The dwarves, obviously pleased by the young man’s interest in one of their favorite topics, launched into a detailed explanation, giving Boromir time to carefully slide the small box down to the floor next to Aragorn’s feet. Glancing over to make sure the king was absorbed in the ongoing discussion, he innocently shifted in his chair as his foot kicked the box, knocking it over.

Boromir and his brother had made a point to dress in fitted breeches that day, and the dwarves’ feet didn’t quite reach the floor from where they sat, so the only place for a pair of panicked mice to run was into the shelter of Aragorn’s long official robes. For a long moment, Boromir feared that the little creatures might have run off in another direction.

Aragorn twitched slightly, his expression suddenly distracted. Boromir grinned broadly.

“Having trouble?”

Aragorn’s eyes widened and he twitched rather more sharply, this time enough so that the dwarves had stopped talking and turned to look at him. Boromir was counting in his mind how long it would take the scrambling little beasts to reach an area of the king’s personal anatomy where they would require immediate attention. Four… three… two…

The king’s guests stared in bewilderment as he lurched from his seat with an alarmed exclamation, wildly shaking his robes. They looked even more astonished when he began desperately slapping at his groin with both hands. The string of profanities that escaped him would have been at home in any dwarven drinking contest, but they were apparently baffled by its use at this moment. Aragorn, still flailing, remembered that he had an audience and attempted to force himself to be still, although he could not help shuddering as tiny paws roamed into highly personal places.

“Please… friends… you must excuse me… I have…well…”

He could not think of any rational explanation for his behavior at the moment, so he turned abruptly and fled to deal with the issue in a more private location. Boromir gave his brother a triumphant grin, laughing heartily.

“Not a good idea…” he chuckled, wiping his eyes as the dwarves stared at each other in confusion.

Faramir looked in the direction that Aragorn had gone and thought to himself that this unexpected success had made the stunt a much, much worse idea than he had initially thought. 


	5. Best Served Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The brothers have upped the ante. Aragorn knows how to handle that kind of behavior.

TITLE: Best Served Cold  
AUTHOR: RubyElf  
RATING: PG13   
CHARACTERS: Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir  
WARNINGS: Boromir likes to swear. A lot.  
SUMMARY: The brothers have upped the ante. Aragorn knows how to handle that kind of behavior.

It's "work on my story" or "strangle my seven-year-old". Story first... strangling later. 

And by the way... all the friendly and wonderful comments on these have made me very, very happy and I have not had this much fun working on something in a long time, so thank you to all for reading and for letting me know what you think!

(if you're just picking it up, this follows [Defenseless](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/842835.html#cutid1), [Bright Ideas](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1), [Taste of His Own Medicine](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843710.html#cutid1), and [Escalation](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/844394.html#cutid1). And if you're tired of it, don't worry... I'm pretty sure there's only one part left after this one)

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

“He’s not going to let this go,” Faramir warned, as he and his brother walked toward their rooms from the training fields.

Boromir shrugged. “He’ll be all right. He’s just sulking.”

“I don’t think Aragorn sulks,” Faramir said, thinking to himself that if there was sulking going on, it was nearly always Boromir doing it. “He’s planning something.”

“If he was planning something he’d have done it already,” Boromir said cheerfully, secure in his victory. “He didn’t even shout at us.”

Faramir frowned. Aragorn hadn’t shouted at them for their prank, but he’d also completely ignored both of them for the last three days, not saying a word to them or even glancing at them whether at dinner or in meetings, as if they had ceased to exist. Boromir seemed to see this as a sign that he had learned his lesson; Faramir highly doubted that.

The next official function at which the king and his steward were required to appear together was the formal presentation of awards of honor to several officers of Gondor’s army who had displayed particular courage and leadership during the war. The ceremony took place outside in the courtyard on a bright, balmy day, and a considerable crowd had gathered to watch. Faramir lurked off to the side and kept an eye on his brother as he stood on the platform at Aragorn’s right, listening proudly as the king extolled the merits of Gondor’s finest fighting men. Arwen, on his other side, held a velvet-lined box containing the handsome medals, courtesy of Gimli and the dwarves of the Glittering Caves, and as she handed the box to Aragorn he turned and, as usual, passed his ornate staff to the steward at his side.

Boromir dropped it.

The crowd fell entirely silent, shocked. Faramir watched as his brother, red-faced, reached down to pick up the staff, only to have it slide effortlessly through his fingers and hit the ground again. Aragorn glanced at him calmly out of the corner of his eye, but otherwise ignored the steward’s difficulty and went on to call names and hand out medals as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Rotten evil bastard…” Boromir growled, storming down the hall with Faramir on his heels. “He covered the whole handle of the thing with oil except the part at the top where he was holding it.”

Faramir bit back a smile as he listened to Boromir rant about being embarrassed in front of the entire city of Gondor and his troops. When they reached Boromir’s room, Faramir thought for just a moment about mentioning that his brother might want to proceed with caution, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. The door opened without incident, although Faramir did take a cautious step back. Boromir strode over to his chair by the hearth, and at least had the good sense to make sure it was not covered with some unpleasant or painful substance before flopping down into it with a sigh.

Boromir had not thought to look _under_ the chair cushion, and if he had he might have noticed the large paper bag full of fine ash from the fire place which had been placed there. Since he didn’t look, however, he discovered this surprise only when he sat down hard on top of it, causing it to explode all over Boromir, his chair, and everything else within four or five feet of him, settling as a gray-white film of very fine, clinging dust.

Faramir took one look at his brother, sitting perfectly still in his chair with the dust clinging to his hair and eyebrows and every fold of his clothes, and took off for his own room, reminding himself to be very careful where he sat. Of course, his surprise was not in his chair, but instead in his house shoes, so that when Faramir pulled off his boots and stuck his feet into the softer leather shoes, he discovered too late that the lining was thoroughly soaked. He kicked the shoes off sharply, at which point he discovered that what they were thoroughly soaked with was blue ink, which not only had now dyed his feet blue but was also splattered generously across his floor, made even worse by the wet blue footprints Faramir left as he went looking for a towel.

Aragorn was relentless. Faramir, attempting to demonstrate some archery techniques to a group of novices on the training field, reached over his shoulder as he always did for an arrow from his quiver, only to discover that the arrows were stuck rather firmly. On closer inspection, this appeared to have something to do with the fact that his quiver had been filled with bread dough. Boromir was sent off during a council meeting to retrieve a book from the library so a certain law of some sort could be looked up; when he returned to the meeting he discovered to his annoyance that the pages in question had been removed and replaced with what appeared to be rather poorly drawn but vaguely pornographic illustrations. Faramir came home one afternoon to discover that his entire room smelled of something horribly rotten; after some searching he discovered that several deceased fish had made their way into his clothes drawers. The stench refused to go away entirely, even after multiple washings, to the annoyance of Faramir and everyone who had to sit next to him. Boromir, on the other hand, discovered that someone had put glue in his boots, which he didn’t notice until he discovered that he was unable to get them off.

“We’re going to have to keep an eye on him all the time,” Boromir growled at his brother, as he attempted to pry his boots off on the edge of his chair. “Catch him in the act. Either you’re watching him or I’m watching him. He won’t have time to pull off these stunts if we never give him a chance to be out of our sight.”

Faramir highly doubted this, but he agreed to Boromir’s plan, and one or the other of them made sure to be in the city and somewhere in Aragorn’s vicinity all day the next two days, making sure he did not go anywhere in the direction of their rooms or any of their belongings.

This attempt, besides leaving Boromir bored out of his mind and extremely irritable, had absolutely no effect on the ongoing attacks. Faramir climbed into bed one night, having inspected the sheets carefully, and fell back contentedly onto his pillow, only to receive a nasty lump when the back of his head discovered that his pillow case now contained a large rock as well as a pillow. Boromir was wakened in the middle of the night to find that all the torches and candles in his room had gone out; when he got up to remedy this, his unprotected toes and shins had numerous painful encounters with various pieces of furniture that had been moved to places where they were most likely to be kicked or tripped upon in the dark. Faramir discovered that someone had replaced his favorite riding gloves with a pair of pretty pink laced ones, but only when he sent one of the stable boys to retrieve them from his bag and bring them back to him in front of a party of Rangers preparing to ride out for the day. On the same day Boromir, having worked up a sweat taking out his aggression on a training dummy by hacking at it with a dulled sword, grabbed for his water jug and took a generous gulp of it before realizing that it tasted rather bitter. He wondered what nasty thing Aragorn might have put in it, but suffered no ill effects, at least until he came back to the city and began receiving a number of very odd looks from people. He finally ran into Faramir, who completely failed to maintain a straight face as he informed his brother that apparently the bitter taste in his water had been due to the addition of a significant quantity of dye, which had apparently had the effect of turning Boromir’s mouth and lips a very odd shade of green that ended up taking several days to completely wash off.

Aragorn, of course, took absolutely no notice of this or any of the other misfortunes that befell the two brothers. In fact, the more unfortunate incidents that the two men encountered, the more Aragorn seemed to get over his previous annoyance with them and regain his usual welcoming disposition, greeting them heartily at meals and chatting with them happily about the events of the day, apparently oblivious to the fact that one brother’s mouth was completely green and the other smelled like rotten fish. Even when both men could swear that the king had been nowhere near the location of the incidents, they continued unabated.

On one of the last warm, golden days of summer, the two brothers sat in one of the quieter gardens, overlooking the pond below where a number of children were taking advantage of the warm sunshine to splash and swim and dunk each other in the cool water while the mothers of the youngest ones sat on the grass and watched over them. Faramir always enjoyed watching the children play in the water, recalling days he and Boromir had escaped their duties and gone off to splash and dive with the other children. Boromir seemed to relax somewhat as they sat; they had been in the garden nearly an hour and nothing had exploded, bitten them, glued itself to them, or turned them odd colors, so perhaps they were safe for the moment.

Both men sat up abruptly when a cry of alarm rose above the general racket from the pond, and the children began to splash toward the banks, looking frightened. The cause of the disturbance was a fair-haired girl in the same white summer under-dress that most of the female children wore to swim, flailing in the deepest part of the water as if struggling not to go under.

“Bloody hell!” Boromir exclaimed, and before Faramir could even react, he was untying his boots and throwing off his leather tunic and racing down the stone stairs toward the pond. Faramir watched from the side as he dove into the water and struck out swimming in the girl’s direction; Boromir had always been a strong swimmer and with a few  powerful strokes he was close enough to throw an arm around the struggling girl’s chest and pull her to the surface.

The moment his hand felt the lean, wiry figure beneath the wet dress, Boromir already knew, and he could only groan in frustration as the rescued swimmer turned in his arms and planted a soggy kiss on his cheek.

“My hero!”

“This is why I _bloody_ hate _bloody elves_!” Boromir roared, shoving away.

Legolas beamed at him. “What? You wouldn’t have rescued me?”

The stream of anatomically impossible and extraordinarily vulgar curses that Boromir hurled at the wet elf only served to make him grin more happily, but the mothers on the banks were motioning anxiously to their children and covering the littler ones’ ears as they hurried them away from the verbal onslaught.

“That’s no way to greet a friend you haven’t seen in months,” Legolas said, pretending to be offended as he splashed to the shore and began wringing the water out of his hair. “Even if I am wearing a dress, that’s no reason to make inappropriate comments about my sexual preferences, either.”

“How long have you been here?” Faramir asked suspiciously, as he held out a hand to help a dripping, furious Boromir out of the water.

Legolas shrugged. “A few days, give or take. By the way, Boromir, how long did it take that green dye to wash off? I brought it from Lothlorien on my way through… Aragorn requested it specially.”

“You filthy son of a…” Boromir launched into another tirade, but Faramir raised a hand to stop him.

“Requested it. From Lothlorien.”

Legolas nodded cheerfully.

“But it would have taken quite some time for the message to get there, and for you to get here…” Faramir said.

“Of course,” the elf said merrily. “That’s our Ranger… always thinking ahead!”

He gave Boromir an affectionate pat on the back as he strolled by.

“Look forward to seeing you both at dinner! Oh, and be rather careful what you eat… that dye isn’t the only thing Aragorn asked me to bring…”

Boromir stood with clenched fists, too furious to speak. Faramir tried very, very hard not to laugh, because he strongly suspected that at this moment it was not unlikely that Boromir would strangle him for it.

“He does play the damsel in distress rather well,” he said finally, unable to resist.

Boromir closed his eyes, obviously fighting the urge to reach for his brother’s throat. Faramir grinned to himself and hurried back up the stairs before Boromir could make up his mind either way. 


	6. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's just about enough of that, isn't it?

TITLE: Truce  
AUTHOR: RubyElf  
RATING: PG13  
CHARACTERS: Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir, Arwen  
WARNINGS: General Deviousness  
DISCLAIMER: Characters do not belong to me. I just use them for my own amusement.   
SUMMARY: That's just about enough of that, isn't it?

This is quite a bit longer than the other parts, but I did want to wrap it up properly... I do so hope that the ending is worth it for those of you who have taken the time to read the rest! Thank you for all your friendly and hilarious comments, and I hope this lives up to expectations...

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“Oh, no,” Faramir said, shaking his head. “No more for me. I’m done.”

Boromir scowled. “Typical of you to quit as soon as things get just the littlest bit dangerous.”

“Typical of you to go barging ahead even when it’s blindingly obvious you’re getting beaten,” Faramir retorted. “I quit. I’m done.”

“If you quit, he wins!” Boromir protested.

“Then he wins,” Faramir said, looking down at his feet, which he was soaking in hot water in front of his fireplace in an attempt to remove the blue ink that didn’t seem to want to go away. “I know when I’ve been defeated. And now he’s gone and called for reinforcements…”

Boromir snorted. “Legolas. He’ll only play till he gets his pretty hair dirty.”

“You,” Faramir said, “are deliberately being dense.”

“I am not!”

“You certainly are, and I want no part of it.”

“Fine,” Boromir said, standing up sharply and heading for the door. “Then I’ll be the only one laughing when all of you are getting what you deserve. If you’re not with me, you’re against me.”

“When did you go back to being twelve years old again?” Faramir asked.

Boromir raised one eyebrow as he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. And how old were you acting when you tried to sneak grasshoppers into my bedroom?”

He had a point there, Faramir admitted to himself, and yawned, enjoying the warmth of the fire on a night that had turned unexpectedly cool. He’d had more than enough of constant vigilance, checking and rechecking every plate of food, every article of clothing, every door and chair and pillow and innocuous-looking random object that came anywhere near him. At one point he’d thought himself rather clever in this area, but Aragorn had proved him to be a mere novice, and he didn’t even want to think about how many new tricks Legolas had accumulated in his few thousand years of life. He closed his eyes, pushed the bucket of water away with his bare, blue feet, and leaned his head back comfortably; the chair would make a nice enough place to sleep for the moment, considering that his earlier inspection of the bed had revealed that the sheets were full of what appeared to be horse hair and were guaranteed to be painfully itchy.

More than enough, he thought, dozing off.

Aragorn, Arwen, and their breakfast guest all looked up from their meal when Faramir strode in, his face making it clear that he had something on his mind. Aragorn set down his bread and motioned for the younger man to sit down. Faramir glanced uneasily at the chair.

“It’s safe. On my honor,” Aragorn said.

Faramir sighed and sat down. “That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”

“Oh?” Aragorn said, as Legolas reached past him to grab a pastry from the tray and Arwen frowned; although a prince, Legolas had never bothered much with proper table manners. Arwen had just returned the evening before from visiting some of the elves who had come to settle in the area around Ithilien, and although she’d always been fond of Thranduil’s youngest, being among other elves had reminded her of just how many uncouth habits he had picked up in his many years as a warrior.

“I surrender,” Faramir said, raising his hands. “I’m done. You win. No more tricks.”

Arwen flashed her husband a sharp look. “Estel! You promised!”

Aragorn raised his hands innocently. “I was provoked! The situation demanded proper retribution.”

“You promised me before I left that you’d put a stop to this foolishness before someone got hurt.”

“Before Boromir gets hurt, she means,” Legolas said to Faramir.

“Before anyone gets hurt,” she corrected him, annoyed.

“Boromir’s a fine man, but this really isn’t his game,” Legolas observed. “It’s rather like chess… requires some creativity and forethought.”

Arwen stood up and straightened her dress. “You could try teaching a bear to play chess, you know, but when it gets tired of playing your way it’s going to play its way, and then it won’t matter how clever you are, will it?”

She spun and disappeared into one of the inner rooms without sparing any of them another glance.

“Well, now you’ve gone and done it,” Legolas said cheerfully.

“Hush,” Aragorn said mildly. “She was going to find out we were still at it eventually… Boromir’s teeth are still a bit green, among other things.”

“I want a truce,” Faramir said.

Aragorn hummed thoughtfully for a moment as he reached for an apple and turned it around and around in his hands. “Ask me this evening. After dinner.”

“Why?” Faramir asked, suddenly very uneasy.

“Because,” the king said easily, “Legolas and I will have to discuss the terms of your surrender.”

Faramir immediately decided that he was going to go to the library and stay far away from everyone and everything for the rest of the day.

Aragorn almost felt some sympathy for Faramir as he watched him during dinner; the young man clearly had the good sense to know when it was time to back down, and Aragorn had decided as soon as Faramir asked that he would allow him to retreat from the game, but he had to admit he was enjoying one last day of watching the poor man stare warily at his food as if it might leap off the plate and slap him. Legolas, on the other hand, made his amusement quite obvious, and made a point of walking behind Faramir and startling him with a sharp tap on the shoulder on his way to his seat.

“Legolas,” Arwen chided him as he sat down beside Aragorn. “Stop tormenting that poor boy.”

Legolas sighed. “But it’s so easy! He’s as jumpy as a squirrel.”

“No idea why,” Aragorn said mildly.

“He came in like a proper gentleman and asked you for a truce, Estel. I will not tolerate you picking on him for one more minute.”

Aragorn recognized the set of his wife’s jaw; Arwen generally tolerated a degree of disobedience, but when she put her foot down, it was unwise to deny her.

“All right, all right. We’ll leave him be.”

She glared at Legolas. “That applies to you, too. Whatever ridiculous behavior you and Boromir choose to get into had better leave Faramir out of it.”

Aragorn nodded thoughtfully. “Well, then, we’ll have to keep him away for the evening, or he’s likely to end up a civilian casualty. Legolas, you’ll just have to take the boy out and keep him busy for a while.”

Legolas cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?’

“Not like _that,_ ” Aragorn said, rolling his eyes. “I meant for you to take him off for some drinks or some such thing.”

Legolas sulked. “You’re going to let me babysit while you have all the fun.”

Aragorn shrugged. “Can’t be helped, my friend. Besides, the lad is pleasant company.”

Arwen shook her head and sighed.

Boromir stormed back to his room in a foul mood. Not only had his brother abandoned him in the middle of the game, but after dinner Legolas had come by and dragged Faramir off to go drink ale with him, which as far as Boromir was concerned was simply intolerable; sons of Stewards did not wander around the city getting drunk with elves, even if the elves in question were of supposedly royal standing. Boromir cheered himself up somewhat as he tossed logs in his fireplace by imagining that his brother would probably return with his hair dyed pink or a raccoon glued to his back or some such thing.

Those logs he’d just tossed on the coals seemed to be crackling and flaming in a very unusual fashion, he noticed, frowning. As foul-smelling black smoke began to billow from the fireplace, Boromir jumped away, but not nearly fast enough to avoid getting a face full of the stuff.

_Bloody hell,_ he thought.

Aragorn leaned back contentedly in the bath, thinking absently about how Boromir would respond to the evening’s planned activities. The skunk he and Legolas had trapped the night before had not appreciated being in a box and had given Aragorn a fairly good spray when he opened the lid to check on it after dinner, but after quite a bit of scrubbing he had gotten rid of the stench and was now pleasantly imagining what Boromir’s room would look and smell like after Aragorn let the creature loose in there after Boromir went to bed. He’d intended to do it earlier, before Boromir got there, but the man had been so irritated over his brother’s betrayal that he had gone directly to his rooms after dinner, forcing a postponement. Aragorn didn’t mind; the skunk would just be in an even worse mood by the time it was released.

Satisfied that he had gotten rid of the stink, he climbed out of the bath, grabbed his robe, and tossed it over his shoulders. The motion immediately raised a dense cloud of very fine greenish powder, and before he could react he was covered from head to toe with the stuff. His eyes widened as he realized that the pungent scent was disturbingly familiar.

_Shit._

Legolas and Faramir came strolling back through the halls not too much later, laughing merrily. Faramir was more relaxed than he’d been in some weeks, first of all because Legolas had assured him his request for a truce had been accepted, and second of all because they had sealed the deal with a number of drinks, none of which had affected the elf at all but which had considerably affected his human companion.

“What is that awful racket?” Legolas asked, frowning.

“What racket?” Faramir asked.

“From Aragorn’s rooms. Listen.”

Faramir forced himself to stop laughing and cocked his ear in the direction Legolas was pointing.

“Oh, that? Sounds like my brother. Sounds quite irate about something or other.”

Legolas grinned. “Shall we go look in on things?”

“Oh, yes. Let’s.”

As the two of them walked into the main room, Boromir was definitely shouting about something, but it was nearly impossible to determine what he might be attempting to say, because he could only get out a few words at a time before he was overcome by a fierce attack of violent sneezing. He glared at his brother with watering eyes and hurled what might have been threats if they had not been rendered comical by another burst of sneezes. Behind him, Aragorn was sitting on the sofa in his underclothes, his skin lividly red from head to toe, scratching frantically as if being attacked by biting ants (which Faramir knew all about) while Arwen, apparently oblivious to the chaos, stood at a table by the window, stirring something in a wooden bowl.

Legolas grinned broadly. “What in the world has happened to the two of you?”

“That rotten…” Boromir began, sneezed forcefully, and then continued. “Rotten bastard… something in the fireplace…”

“I didn’t put anything anywhere near your fireplace!” Aragorn said sharply, still desperately scratching. “And you still haven’t explained where you got bloody itching powder from a plant that only grows…”

He fell silent, and Legolas looked at him curiously. “Only grows…”

“Around Rivendell,” Aragorn said, turning slowly to direct an astonished look at the back of his wife’s head.

From where he stood, Legolas could see the quiet smile flicker across Arwen’s face, but she continued stirring whatever she was mixing and said nothing.

“Arwen?” Aragorn asked.

“Yes, my dear Estel?”

“You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said gently, turning around. “And stop scratching or I’ll tie bags over your hands like I threatened to do earlier. You’re going to have scratches all over yourself.”

“This,” Legolas declared, “is beyond perfect. Faramir, this calls for another drink!”

“I agree,” Faramir said heartily, although he had not quite managed to follow the discussion on account of the number of previous drinks.

“Certainly,” Arwen said, moving toward the wine cabinet.

“Oh, no,” Legolas laughed. “No offense, my lovely lady, but I’ll choose my own bottle.”

He motioned for Faramir to sit down in one of the chairs by the fireplace as he retrieved a dusty, untouched bottle from the back of the cabinet and grabbed two wine glasses from the dining table as he made his way back.

“These are very nice, Arwen,” he observed, holding one up to admire the fine silverwork.

“Wedding gift from Gimli,” she said absently. “Estel, _stop scratching_!”

She went to her room and came back with a small blue bottle, motioning to Boromir, who was still pacing the room and sneezing loudly.  
“Boromir, I happen to have something here that will put a stop to that sneezing.”

Boromir attempted to glare at her suspiciously through watering eyes. “Oh?”

“Yes, and I’ll give it to you right now, but only if you swear to me that this ridiculous game is absolutely over and that there will be no more pranks or jokes or tricks of any kind.”

He grumbled something unintelligible.

“That sneezing powder can last for several days,” she said mildly.

“Fine. I swear it.”

“Swear it on your honor and the honor of the kingdom of Gondor.”

“Fine! I swear it! Give me the bottle!”

“You also have to promise that you will do a favor for me later this evening. It won’t be an unpleasant one, I promise.”

“ _Fine_! I promise!”

Arwen laughed and handed the bottle to him, watching as he pulled out the cork and drank, making a face at the foul taste, but when he set the bottle down again he looked tremendously relieved to discover that he had stopped sneezing.

“You could have left him go a little longer. It was quite funny,” Legolas said, chuckling. He glanced at Faramir, and discovered to his alarm that the young man appeared to be rapidly dozing off in his chair, his head slumped to the side. The elf frowned and cocked his head, noticing suddenly that he was having considerable trouble getting his eyes to focus.

“Arwen…”

“Yes, Legolas?”

“How exactly did you get sleeping powder into that wine when the bottle was sealed?”

“It wasn’t in the wine, silly elf. It was in the glasses.”

“Your brothers,” he mumbled, “would be very proud.”

Boromir watched with surprise as Legolas slumped back in his chair, sound asleep.

“Very good,” Arwen said, smiling. “Now, for the two of you.”

“I already promised I wouldn’t…” Boromir protested.

Arwen held up her hand. “I know.”

She picked up the mixture she’d been stirring, which appeared to be some kind of light oil, smelling slightly of herbs.

“What is that?” the man asked suspiciously.

“You don’t think I would have an antidote for your troubles and not my poor husband’s, did you? That wouldn’t be fair at all.”

“That doesn’t look like it will taste very good,” Boromir noted, grinning at Aragorn.

“It’s not for drinking,” she said. “It’s for applying to the skin. Takes the itch away very quickly.”

She moved to stand behind Aragorn, but set the bowl down and instead pulled the sash from her dress and, working quickly and efficiently, tied Aragorn’s hands securely behind his back.

“What is that for?” he protested, squirming as his voice took on an edge of genuine alarm.

“It appears that if you want that itching to stop any time soon, you’re going to have to find someone to assist you with this oil, aren’t you?”

Aragorn gave her an anxious look, but stopped struggling.

Arwen smiled sweetly, picked up the bowl, and handed it to Boromir.

“You, dear Boromir, owe me a favor.”

Boromir looked at the bowl and his eyes widened slightly. “Err…”

Arwen kissed Aragorn and then Boromir on the cheek. “Perhaps by the time you’re done you’ll have found some way to forgive each other for all this foolishness. You know I can’t stand for you two to be upset with each other.”

She breezed toward the door, stopping to lean over and tug on Legolas’s ear to make sure he was truly as unconscious as he appeared to be.

“Don’t worry about these two. They’ll be out until sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

The door shut behind her. Aragorn closed his eyes and smiled.

“I think we’ve been vanquished, Boromir.”

Boromir sighed, staring at the bowl of oil. “It does appear that way.”

“Are you angry with me?”

Boromir tried not to smile. “I suppose I could get over it.”

“Good,” Aragorn said, allowing Boromir to pull him up by the arm and steer him toward the smaller and more private rooms behind them. “That oil smells rather nice. I hope it works. That itching powder is terrible. Elrond absolutely forbade the twins to play with it.”

“You appear to have gotten it in some… unfortunate places,” Boromir noted, steering him into one of the bedrooms.

“You know, your brother snores terribly,” Aragorn noted, as Boromir shut the door.

“Always has,” Boromir said fondly, as he set the bowl of oil on the stand by the bed and busied himself with the removal of what little clothing Aragorn had on.

“Are you going to untie me?”

Boromir grinned. “No.”

“This is all your brother’s fault, really,” Aragorn said.

“I know it,” Boromir agreed, rubbing oil between his hands to warm it. “Bloody grasshoppers.”

Late morning sun slanted between the curtains, falling across Boromir’s face. He directed some choice curses at the sun and nature in general before rolling back over against the warm body next to him. Then he realized what had woken him up; first of all, someone was tapping gently but insistently at the bedroom door, and second, there was a very distinct and pungent stench accompanying that someone.

“What?” Aragorn muttered sleepily.

“Estel,” came Arwen’s voice from outside, her voice as mild as always, but with a slightly frayed edge to it. “You wouldn’t happen to know, dear, why there happened to be a very unhappy skunk in a box in the closet across the hall when I went to look for the fall clothes this morning?”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Aragorn muttered, eyes widening. “I forgot about the skunk.”

“Skunk?” Boromir asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Hush!” Aragorn whispered. “I don’t know a damn thing about it, and neither do you!”

________________________________________________________________________________

([Defenseless](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/842835.html#cutid1), [Bright Ideas](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843397.html#cutid1), [Taste of His Own Medicine](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/843710.html#cutid1), [Escalation](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/844394.html#cutid1), [Best Served Cold](http://community.livejournal.com/sons_of_gondor/844756.html#cutid1))


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